H&M apologises for monkey image featuring black child

Clothing retailer H&M pulled a controversial online ad featuring what appears to be a small Black boy wearing a sweatshirt that says "coolest monkey in the jungle".

Social media users raged against the Swedish retailing giant.

The hoodie is still available to buy online but it no longer features the image of the child modelling it. "We sincerely apologize for offending people with this image of a printed hooded top", they wrote. "We will thoroughly investigate why this happened to prevent this type of mistake from happening again".

H&M was forced to remove an ad after getting complaints about a childrens sweatshirt for sale.

Dove, owned by Unilever, was forced to apologize in October for a social media post that the company said "missed the mark" representing black women.

As reported earlier today, the racially insensitive image, which was posted on H&M's United Kingdom retail site as "printed hooded top", sparked social media outrage over the weekend and was subsequently deleted. We will also look into our internal routines to avoid such situations in the future.

"We want out marketing to show our fashion in an inspiring way, to convey a positive feeling." the statement concluded.

Another user compared the image to one of a white child modelling a hoodie with the words "jungle survival expert". "We're always about being there for our customers".